Espresso: How to Scale from £0 to £1 Million Sales - William Kendall from Green & Blacks

0:05To me a craft brewery has sort of got to have a brewery yeah it's got to have a head brewery who kind of is my kind of archetypal head brewer, who looks like a head brewer. You know, they can be... Well, that's your story as well. That's your story. That's your marketing. The fact that Louise, the LA brewery,

0:26their biggest headache is their biggest marketing weapon in that we make it in our own brewery in Suffolk, which is super fascinating. In terms of, we talked about this one million mark, most people will be listening to this are on that journey what's one if you could like tattoo like a sentence of of wisdom there that they have to look at every day as they're going on that journey because as every single person is getting to that one million mark is just so hard and that's it's the point you've got to dig in like yeah what would you say for listeners well you know you you've got to believe that you're going to get to a million and you've got to have a plan it's you've got to have a roadmap you know people who set budgets that they don't believe are going to deliver you know won't deliver them but you've got to work out if you if you're saying well we're going to double our sales because i've just sold sold that to my investor going to double our sales in the next couple of years then how are you going to do it what does it take count backwards you know if you're doing half a million at the moment you're going to get to you know a million two million in the next couple of years how how does that work who you know what customers do we need to get into how's that going to work and you know you need to do a a tight timeline i mean i you know so often you see five-year plans and and and the first year is quite detailed and then i mean i look at you know investment decks almost every day and there's quite a lot of detail about the next few months and then it all gets rather vague as as the as the hockey stick kicks off and and you know people are going to get up to five ten fifteen million well how's that going to happen I'm not interested in that.

2:04I want to know how you're going to get from half a million to a million. So spell it out in micro detail. I want to know who you are, what experience you've got, who you're missing. Who do you need to take you on that journey? Well, if you haven't got them there, then it's not going to happen or it's not going to happen as easily as you need it to. What do you see in the best plans you see? What are the consistent things, as you say, you see? Great people. Great people. not a kind of Manchester City A team all lined up. I say you've got to play in position. But if I'm putting on my investor hat, it's got to be a team.

2:45So a team to me is more than one person. Yeah. And so it needs to be a credible team. You need to have very strong financial resources. is you know in a way your financial the person who's sort of keeping the score needs to be way better than than the business can afford so you somehow need to come together you need to put together a as you know a chief financial officer function whether it's a combination of somebody who comes in one day a week and somebody who's kind of ambitious and not quite up to doing it on their own however you do it but you just need i've seen so many businesses struggle including my own in the past where you had you know not good enough um financial resources where the weekly numbers were coming out late and you didn't trust them and so everything falls apart from that so to me you know that's that's kind of boring stuff but you know i i can't do that for me i need someone i've had a business partner for most of my life since coffin garden suit who just did that who you know whenever i say it's going really well he would go off to prove to me that it was doing really badly and you know having someone who's just keeping a very very accurate record enables you to do all of the stuff that you the the founder or you the sort of brand visionary can do because there's somebody who's kind of keeping tabs on it so to me that's the that's a bit and that person or that function or that attitude will you know will drive the detailed business plan and and as i say years three to five will um years three to five will will sort of fall into place if you get one and two right but you know so often you say well how come there's this great hockey stick in years four and five of the five-year business plan oh well it's new product development well where's the new product development well that's happening in years and four and five well have you ever seen new product development deliver great volumes in the first and second year i mean most of the time it fails so start so if you're gonna you're gonna have great results from new product development in years four and five let's see that let's see how that's going to take shape in year one and that's probably all cost in year one so put that in your plan what else do you see that's wrong do you think that's quite a lot isn't it there is but this is just digging a little bit deeper so i said you know i said you need really good people but i mean not that doesn't necessarily mean people who've come from very large companies who've been you know done lots of courses it just means people who listen and learn from listening again i see people who just keep doing the same old thing and you know keep plugging away i i you know people come with business plans and and businesses and and you know they say what do you think of my idea it's it's you know i don't know it sounds sounds good to me i'm i get very excited about new ideas anyway but is it working and well it's kind of half working well which tell me about the half bit well how are you going to make the half bit a three-quarter bit it's people who you know nothing if you look at the best businesses and and look at where they started if you you know the idea in the bath and how it ended up let's let's track that and you know you and I have just been out into our farmyard and you've met Alice who is a young chef and I love having her here not only because she makes delicious food but watching the way a chef changes their business the whole time you know because I mean you've got the luxury of it your business cycles are very very short you know I put something on a menu and and that sold and that didn't sell well I'll drop the thing that didn't sell but just the way she came here you know in 2021 so two years ago with an idea sort of tail end of the pandemic and we're now probably on to version 5.0 of it because she's just she's out there she's looking she's listening she's got a million ideas of her own she's testing them and you know it's easier if you're running that sort of format it's a small business you're you're facing the customers the whole time you're cooking you can change you haven't invested in a lot of stainless steel but i'm just saying that that ability to to pivot again and again and again as you as you see stuff is to me is that's that's vital and i see businesses that do that and i see business founders who are capable of doing that and i see business founders who are hell-bent on getting the bloody customers to accept what they want to do in the first place and and and you're you'll fail you'll fail someone else will do it it's like it's like the pursuit of the i know again it's ironic me saying this after we talked about the unicorn in in the states but so that whole silicon valley product market fit it's like you ask enough questions you iterate iterate iterate then it links up quick one guys espressos have got a brand new sponsor unleashed unleashes inventory management software that talks directly to your finance and econ software we use unleashed daily 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7:58Why use it? Save money, save headaches, save stress, get granular clarity on your margins, know where your stock is, don't miss availability. Look, your favourite brands literally use Unleashed as their backbone. Candy Kittens, Tiny Rebel, Trip always religiously. Look, there's a link in the show notes. Please feel free to book a call with Josh and his wonderful sales team at Unleashed. They're amazing. Even nothing comes of it. and even better news you'll get your first month free if you reference hungry thank you i think one of the quotes i love is by um oasis which may escape me but it's a lyric of theirs which is um the best uh the best answers of questions or the question lies in the answer the answer lies in the question sorry what what do you think are some questions um people listening to this podcast should be constantly asking themselves to build household brands ed ed perry from cook talks about positive paranoia about you know as a founder having that that thing that keeps you awake at night but is actually really positive what would you say are those one to two questions well i mean you know that's that's a that's a pretty good one and that's a great brand isn't it i think you know what's this you know i'm just saying what's this for we started off or we nearly started off by talking about about purpose and i I think the word purpose has been slightly hijacked by, you know, sort of the ESG professionals.

9:28And by the way, I'm completely committed to all of that as well. So it's not a criticism, but I just think what is this for? What are we trying to deliver with this? Because I think by asking that question again and again and again, you you kind of it helps you away from going down those blind alleys so i mean i'm going to use you asked me a general question i'm going to be specific but so la brewery we're we're we're sort of two years into it and just before i remember it's just before the pandemic we've got a shareholder who's dutch and she's very well connected with with with heineken and so we we were invited to go and meet the head of no and low at heineken who was a really impressive italian or was an italian woman she's been told by presumably her boss to meet us because otherwise why on earth is she meeting three people who are walking across amsterdam with some samples of kombucha and she um we meet her she's charming she's invited she's brought in some of her team we're we're having a nice but not very substantive meeting louise is pitching and then half an hour into it.

10:40The bee says, do you want to try some? And they say, sure. And she says, the head of Nolan Lowe says, as she tries it, she said, but this is delicious. And I said, why did you say but? And she said, she confessed, basically. She hadn't tried, she didn't like kombucha. She hadn't tried any kombucha that she'd be impressed with, but she said, this is delicious. And she said, why are you calling it kombucha? And I got all defensive at that point. I said, well, because, It is kombucha, and it's a$2 billion sector in the States, and it's flying over there, and it's going to do the same in the UK. It's just not doing it at the moment.

11:17I just spent millions of pounds a year on research, on low and low. The feedback I get is people want something that's non-alcoholic. They want something that's naturally low in sugar. They want something that's delicious, and I've just tried it, and this is delicious, and ideally that it's good for them. You've got all four of these things. you know in in your drink and you're calling it kombucha and nobody cares that it's kombucha nobody gives stuff that you you are answering for big global needs you know in in a world that's awash with food and drink why are you and i kind of thought hang on a minute i've been in this business for a long time it's really annoying that you've said that you've just absolutely nailed it yeah if you look at what's what we've been trying to do ever since with la brewery is is kind of recognising it is kombucha.

12:07And there are more and more people out there who do like kombucha. So we don't want to kind of walk away from it. But how do you, in a new category, how do you, anyway, that's the sort of, you know, you get the point, but I'm just saying we should have asked that question. She, you know, took an outsider to ask that question. But what are we for? What needs are we trying to answer? You know, this idea that Britain needs a whole load of kombucha because the West Coast and the East Coast of America seem to want a whole load of kombucha. It's woolly thinking. It's not good enough. We should have been out there saying, there's 50 % of British people now saying they want to drink nothing alcoholic or a lot less.

12:50That is our purpose. How do we take this drink, this kombucha drink, which seems to sort of fulfil quite a lot of these things, how do we take that and how do we absolutely nail that need? Because that is a big need. It's a political need. it's a you know health need it's a consumer taste need how do we that's you know it needs that sort of clarity of thinking i think i think questions and you said woolly thinking is great way of putting it questions kind of boil out the woolly thinking and can provide that lucid clarity sometimes to founders are there any other questions you think they should be asking themselves a lot that they don't you see you know you see a lot of founders that just don't ask themselves those questions that if they did could really impact the business in a positive way well what did the cook guy say you know paranoid i mean i i just think you know that kind of gets it all isn't it i just think you know it's it's being restless i've got a friend who chairs a family business in the midlands that's been going since the 1850s and i can't remember which year in the 1850s but his strapline is restless since 18 whatever i mean they're not a food business but they're they're you know it doesn't matter what they are but they're they're they are they're constantly pivoting a big business they're one of the biggest manufacturers in in in the midlands they you know they're the biggest biggest employer in a in a big midlands town and you know being constantly restless i mean it must be a nightmare if you're not a restless type working in that sort of environment but i mean i went up there and it's it's a town that's not had a great recent history and and yeah you know it he's managed to recruit people back from london to to work there because they're just excited by that sort of restlessness so i mean paranoia restless whatever you can come up all these words they're not necessarily they're not necessarily attributes that you choose to take on holiday with you as a sort of holiday companion but but actually i think that's what you need to be successful in business it's just constantly you know pivoting all these sorts of things so you need so so restless founder completely agreed because you know if you it's a positive paranoia but then as your team gets bigger if and i've i know this i'm quite a restless person and even even with this podcast with my industry he's like mate what like i'm like can you do this can you do this it's a nightmare nightmare to go away with when as your business gets bigger if you're too restless and you're too all over the shop it can create friction with your senior leadership team who have have have people to look after how do founders and and or senior leadership teams manage that do that kind of that that paradox of needing to be restless but also needing systems and consistency to actually build a bloody business do you see what i mean yeah well i mean i think you know as you get bigger you probably you know there's a bit of um division of labor going on so you know i think if the founder stops being restless then that that's a sort of that's a potential existential issue i think having i think having the founder there being restless being quite annoying but actually restless founders tend to be very charismatic so they're unlikely to drive away the doers the executors the whatever that you need in the business as well as long as there is some there's somebody in the middle who is sort of translating it um but you know i i mean i don't think i'm necessarily i'm not i'm not actually really a founder of businesses i'm somebody who is intrigued by i'm attracted by founders i find they're sort of what can the chaos that can probably come from them troubling but not sort of so troubling that i want to run away from them i want to sort of work with them chaos from them troubling by that you mean well i mean i mean i mean that the early stage founders who have got who have got a whole load of other issues that they are probably trying to work through in their personalities when they start a business don't necessarily make great bosses and so I think but I find the flaws in the character of the of the business founder very appealing I mean people think I'm a founder people think I'm an entrepreneur I don't know what I am but I'm not I'm not a natural founder I'm much happier working with either the results of that activity or the person themselves and I've done that multiple times some people it's impossible to work with them and they don't want to work with you know they just don't want to listen to you so I'm I'm I'm not that um I'm not a founder but I think that if you lose that energy um you know Louise at LA is she just I mean when I when I first met her and I tasted the delicious drink that she produced she said to me and and it wasn't just for show she said all I care about is I get lots of people to try this drink because I love it so much I remember when I first tried it and I thought this is so amazing and I just want other people to try it I mean you know of course she wants to make some money out of the business of course she wants to do a whole load of other things but to me that's what you need in a business I think that you know I see businesses that have got to a certain stage and they've they've lost that they become you know brilliantly well run brilliantly you know process driven so I think you you kind of need you know you need to retain that but but not not at the expense you know it does need as you get bigger you do need some stability you do need um you know a program where you decide how how you launch new products and you don't you know there's nothing more annoying when you reach a certain size and and you tell the supermarket you're about to come out with something and it arrives three months late because that doesn't fit in with their business model you know they need the stuff to arrive on time and that means you know they've got a program they're they're you know they're quite bureaucratic because they're big so you have to fit in with that and you need to understand that and if if the business founder is still saying now well that's not the way i work you're never going to get anywhere so you do need a bit of both but i think the most successful most interesting businesses are where that founder energy is still you know if they're not there full-time they're still there um you know i've never worked with julian metcalf i've you know see a bit of him but you know you've you've i don't know if you come if you i've been to years yeah yeah but you know someone like julian everyone's saying you know he is a kind of restless founder but you know i've got friends well mark's another one i've got friends who who worked with him i've never heard anyone sort of saying it's anything other than positive i'm sure on a day-to-day basis it's it's it's it can be a bit it's taking yeah it's taking the um And it's taking the, there will be little moments of hiccups or annoyances, but you'd much rather have those little moments than there'd be no restlessness at all.

20:03And I think the analogous way of looking at this is I interviewed a chef when I was talking to him and he was basically saying, as you get bigger, as his brands got bigger, the chef doesn't need to be in the kitchen all the time. It doesn't have to be on the pass every service. It's just impossible. But there's a vibe and the sous chef knows it and or the sales director or the finance director knows it that there's an omnipresence of ex-chef or ex-founder or Julian Metcalf that's kind of there. And Julian does a great job of doing it. He has one of Steve Jobs' original or Apple's original computers in the foyer at the ITSU office as you walk through.

20:46and it's in this like box right that is a great example of he may be anyway he could be on a beach but there's whenever every employee walks past that it's a great thing of like you just push the limits um i'm trying to think of some of the things he said like lead by example like that that is leading by example even when he's not there thank you so so much for listening it honestly means the world to me i hope you enjoyed your morning coffee and go and have an amazing day let's be having ya if you want the full episode it will be in the show notes a link will be in the show notes for the full episode thank you so much please say friends as well means the world to me